JOB DESCRIPTION

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Senior Executive Leadership · Technology & Engineering

Department

Technology & Engineering

Reports To

Chairman | Vice Chairman

Employment Type

Full-Time, Permanent

Experience Required

Minimum 10 Years (Engineering + Leadership)

Location

[Bangalore / India / Remote Policy]

About the Role

We are looking for a battle-tested Chief Technology Officer who has earned their stripes - not from a business school classroom, but from the trenches of software development. Our ideal CTO started as a developer, wrote production code, debugged systems, and understands what it means to ship under pressure. They have since grown into a visionary leader who can zoom out to set long-term technology strategy while still being respected - and understood - by every engineer on the team.

This is not a role for a manager who "used to code." This is a role for someone who can open a terminal today, review a pull request with credibility, challenge a junior developer's architecture decision, and then walk into a board meeting and defend a huge technology investment - all in the same day.

Key Responsibilities

TECHNOLOGY VISION & STRATEGY

▸ Define and own the company's multi-year technology roadmap aligned with business objectives.

▸ Evaluate emerging technologies (AI/ML, cloud, infrastructure, data) and advise the executive team on adoption decisions.

▸ Drive the transition from tactical technology decisions to a scalable, future-proof architecture.

▸ Represent the company's technology capabilities to investors, clients, and external partners.

HANDS-ON TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP

▸ Conduct architecture reviews, technical design approvals, and code quality assessments.

▸ Actively participate in critical technical discussions - not as a spectator, but as a contributor.

▸ Set and enforce engineering standards: coding practices, CI/CD pipelines, security protocols, and deployment processes.

▸ Identify technical debt early and champion systematic resolution plans.

▸ Stay current with industry best practices and apply them to the team's workflows.

ENGINEERING TEAM LEADERSHIP

▸ Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing engineering organization across multiple disciplines.

▸ Build a culture of ownership, accountability, psychological safety, and continuous learning.

▸ Attract, hire, and retain top-tier engineering talent. Know what "great" looks like in a technical interview.

▸ Run effective engineering rituals: sprint planning, retrospectives, architecture forums, and 1-on-1s.

▸ Develop career growth frameworks and promote talent from within.

PRODUCT & CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION

▸ Partner with Product, Design, and Business teams to translate requirements into executable technical plans.

▸ Manage the technology budget and prioritize engineering investment with clear ROI justification.

▸ Establish SLAs and ensure platform reliability, performance, and security at scale.

▸ Champion DevOps and agile methodologies across the engineering organization.

OPERATIONAL & INFRASTRUCTURE EXCELLENCE

▸ Oversee cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity posture, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning.

▸ Lead vendor evaluation and management for critical technology partnerships.

▸ Ensure GDPR, data privacy, and regulatory compliance across all technology systems.

▸ Build monitoring, alerting, and incident response capabilities that minimize downtime.

Qualifications & Requirements

YOU MUST HAVE THESE

Candidates who have not personally written and shipped production code will not be considered. We verify this during our interview process.

▸ Minimum 10 years of total professional experience in technology and engineering roles.

▸ At least 5 years of hands-on software development experience - writing, reviewing, and owning production code.

▸ At least 3–5 years in a senior technology leadership role (VP Engineering, Head of Technology, or CTO).

▸ Deep, demonstrable proficiency in at least one major tech stack (e.g., Node.js/Python/Java/Go) and modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).

▸ Proven track record of leading and scaling engineering teams of 10+ developers.

▸ Strong understanding of system design, distributed architecture, microservices, and API design.

▸ Experience managing cloud infrastructure including Kubernetes, containerization, CI/CD pipelines, and IaC tools (Terraform, Helm).

TECHNICAL SKILLS (DEPTH EXPECTED)

▸ Backend development experience (REST/GraphQL APIs, databases, caching layers).

▸ Frontend or mobile exposure - enough to review and challenge technical decisions credibly.

▸ Database design and optimization: relational (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch).

▸ Cloud-native architecture: serverless, event-driven systems, load balancing, auto-scaling.

▸ Security fundamentals: authentication, authorization, data encryption, OWASP principles.

▸ Familiarity with AI/ML integration, data pipelines, or analytics platforms is a strong plus.

LEADERSHIP & SOFT SKILLS

▸ Exceptional communicator who can translate complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.

▸ Strong decision-making skills under ambiguity - able to move fast without breaking things that matter.

▸ Servant leader mindset: you measure your success by the success of your team.

▸ High integrity - willing to escalate bad news early rather than let problems compound.

▸ Strategic thinker who does not lose sight of execution details.

▸ Experience presenting to boards, investors, or C-level stakeholders is preferred.

Your Engineering Team

The CTO will directly oversee and be accountable for the performance, growth, and output of the following engineering roles. You are expected to understand every role deeply enough to hire for it, review its work, and challenge its decisions.

Role

Core Stack / Tools

What the CTO Must Know to Lead This Role

Senior Frontend Developer

Next.js · React · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Redux · Jest

Able to review component architecture, assess performance bottlenecks, challenge state management decisions, and evaluate SSR vs. CSR tradeoffs.

Senior QA Engineer

Selenium · Playwright · Appium · Newman · Jenkins · JMeter

Understands test pyramid strategy, CI-integrated quality gates, and the difference between manual regression and automated test coverage.

DevOps Engineer

AWS · Kubernetes · Docker · Terraform · CI/CD · Bash · Python

Can review infrastructure architecture, challenge deployment strategies, and make informed decisions on cloud cost vs. reliability tradeoffs.

Flutter Mobile Developer

Flutter · Dart · Kotlin · Objective-C · Firebase · REST APIs

Understands mobile release cycles, platform channel integration, and the performance implications of cross-platform vs. native development.

Product Designer (UI/UX)

Figma · Adobe XD · Design Systems · Usability Testing · Prototyping

Can bridge design and engineering - understanding when pixel-perfect matters, when it doesn't, and how to protect design quality under delivery pressure.

PHP Laravel Developer

PHP · Laravel · Redis · Kafka · Elasticsearch · MongoDB · Docker · Microservices

Understands API design, message queue architecture, search indexing strategies, and can critically assess service boundaries in a microservices setup.

Senior Python Developer

Python · Django · Docker · Kubernetes · AWS · AI/ML integrations · CI/CD

Can evaluate backend architecture quality, challenge AI/ML integration approaches, and ensure production deployment practices are sound and scalable.

Leadership Expectation

The CTO is not expected to be the best coder on every team - but they must be credible to every team. You should be able to sit in a technical debate with a Senior PHP Developer about Kafka consumer groups, then turn around and review a Flutter app's state management approach, and then challenge a DevOps engineer's Kubernetes autoscaling policy - all in the same day.

How to Apply

Qualified candidates should submit the following:

▸ Updated CV highlighting hands-on technical experience and team leadership milestones.

▸ Optional but valued: links to GitHub, technical blog, open-source contributions, or architecture case studies.

Shortlisted candidates will go through a structured interview process including a technical architecture review and an engineering leadership discussion. We assess competence, not credentials.

Experience:

• CTO: 3 years (Preferred)
• Development: 7 years (Preferred)

Work Location: Remote